morly – something more holy

at the outset of her career, it appeared as if morly would be content exploring the emotional ceiling of minimal, ambient-indebted dance music. much of her debut ep, in defense of my muse, operates within these confines; only on its finale does she finally allow us to hear her voice. in that context, “drone poem (in defense of my muse)” was an anomaly, but now it feels much more like a prelude.

morly’s sophomore ep, the beautiful something more holy, is an about-face, a decidedly vocal-centric body of work that finds the producer and singer maximizing each facet of her minimalist palette. morly’s vocals inject energy and tension into the brooding, resting heart rate pulse of “if only chords,” while “by the polo pond” is particularly commanding, its rather bleak thematics delivered atop a synthetic brass section for extra emphasis.

but perhaps the most important voices aren’t the ones carrying the main melody. the ep’s title track is largely constructed around a bevy of vocal manipulations, ones that both support morly’s lyrics and juxtapose their smooth contour with a more angular polyrhythm; “plucky” uses similarly-manipulated textures to flesh out underlying harmonies.

something more holy again leaves much to be desired, but only in terms of quantity, certainly not quality. the ep’s physical release is paired with its predecessor; played in succession, the two outline an expansive, virtually limitless foundation for morly to further construct her sonic architecture. we’ll be waiting – albeit a bit impatiently – to hear what she builds next.